There’s a lot of pro and con to be found in the Twitterlitter regarding new-ish artist, Lana Del Rey, who hails originally from Lake Placid, NY (now Brooklyn, natch).  Given the songs (Video Games and Blue Jeans, both to be released on Stranger Records in October) and videos below, we can’t connect to the con.  The songs impart an elegiac and moving melancholia, all immersed in a nostalgic haze.  And the videos cinematically convey a vivid adolescence (Lefort, circa 3.0), via a Belmondo, Dogtown, Sunset Strip pastiche (despite her Lake Placid upbringing).  We could do with less film spent on a vamping Del Rey, but for now we’re pronouncing an overall pro.

Lana Del Rey plays the Hotel Cafe on 9/27, but the show sold out quickly.  If you can get us in, we’ll be your best friends.  No other shows west of NYC are currently scheduled.

First up is Video Games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO1OV5B_JDw&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Also to be released soon is the song Blue Jeans, after the lyrics.

“BLUE JEANS
WHITE SHIRT
WALKED INTO THE ROOM U KNOW U MADE MY EYES BURN
IT WAS LIKE, JAMES DEAN- FOR SURE
U SO FRESH TO DEATH & SICK AS CA-CANCER
YOU WERE SORTA PUNK ROCK, I GREW UP ON HIP HOP
BUT U FIT ME BETER THAN MY FAVOURITE SWEATER- AND I KNOW
THAT LUV IS MEAN, AND LUV HURTS
BUT I STILL REMEMBER THAT DAY WE MET IN DECEMBER- OH BABY!
*
I WILL LUV U TILL THE END OF TIME
I WOULD WAIT 1,000,000 YEARS
PROMISE U’LL REMEMBER THAT UR MINE
BABY CAN U SEE THROUGH THE TEARS
LUV U MORE
THAN THOSE BITCHES BEFORE
SAY U’LL REMEMBER -OH BABY- SAY U’LL REMEMBER
I WILL LUV U TILL THE END OF TIME
*
BIG DREAMS
GANGSTER
SAID U HAD TO LEAVE TO START UR LIFE OVER
I WAS LIKE- “NO PLEASE” STAY HERE
WE DON’T NEED NO MONEY WE CAN MAKE IT ALL WORK
BUT HE HEADED OUT ON MONDAY, SAID HE’D COME HOME SUNDAY
I STAYED UP WAITIN’, ANTICIPATIN’ AND PACIN’ BUT HE WAS
CHASING PAPER
CAUGHT UP IN THE GAME-THAT WAS THE LAST I HEARD
*
CHORUS
*
HE WENT OUT EVERY NIGHT
AND BABY THAT’S ALRIGHT
I TOLD U THAT NO MATTER WHAT U DID I’D BE BY YOUR SIDE
CAUSE IM A RIDE OR DIE
WHETHER U FAIL OR FLY
WELL SHIT @ LEAST U TRIED.
BUT WHEN U WALKED OUT THAT DOOR- A PIECE OF ME DIED
I TOLD U I WANTED MORE-BUT THAT NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND
I JUST WANT IT LIKE BEFORE
WE WERE DANCIN ALL NIGHT
THEN THEY TOOK U AWAY-STOLE U OUT OF MY LIFE
U JUST NEED TO REMEMBER….
THAT I WILL LUV U TILL THE END OF TIME
i promise”

We particularly liked her answer to a question posed by Pitchfork recently in an interview:

“Pitchfork: You started singing in a church choir– do you think your church would approve of some of the lyrics on “Kinda Outta Luck” like the one about hitting dudes in the back of the head with a gun?

LDR: God has saved me a million times so I think he must’ve enjoyed that song.”

And with that, you might as well check out the bouncy, Blondie-esque Kinda Outta Luck below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gg8pZYjCTM&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL

Girls supplied their usual live kill last night on Jimmy Fallon.  Check ’em out performing Honey Bunny and My Ma below (courtesy of the Audio Perv), and don’t forget about the live in-store webcast tomorrow.  The band also released its highly praised new album Father, Son, Holy Ghost yesterday on True Panther.

And here’s My Ma:

Indie jazzman, Colin Stetson, has played and recorded with an amazing roster of musicians, including Bon Iver (on the current tour too), Tom Waits, Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, Feist, My Brightest Diamond, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Jolie Holland, Sinead O’Connor, LCD Soundsystem, The National, and Anthony Braxton.

Stetson’s excellent recent release, New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges (featuring fine guest vocalists, Laurie Anderson and ubiquitous Shara Worden), can be streamed and bought HERE.  The music was captured entirely live in single takes at Montréal’s Hotel2Tango studio, with no overdubs or looping, using over 20 mics positioned close and far throughout the live room.  The smart lads over at Said the Gramophone have said this about the album:  “It is the most exciting and devastating record that I have heard in seasons; it is a roaring, terrible sadness. Twenty microphones, planted like roses around a room – capturing the ripple of notes, the wails of resonance, the violent clack of fingers on keys and the shriek of Stetson’s own voice, sounding through the horn; like Stetson has two hearts, four lungs, can sing two different sorrows at once. Judges sounds like nothing else. It is like being struck by a comet. It is only January but there is an album of the year.”

Below are two clips of Stetson blazing solo at the Riverside Theater in Milwaukee this summer.  Check out Part of Me Apart From You and Judges off that record.

Colin Stetson – Part of Me Apart from You from Dan Huiting on Vimeo.

And here’s Judges.

Colin Stetson – Judges from Dan Huiting on Vimeo.

And then check out this black & white footage from Stetson on freak sax at the Drake Hotel.

COLIN STETSON – Live at the Drake Hotel from Mitch Fillion (southernsouls.ca) on Vimeo.

The great San Francisco band, Girls, today released their new album, “Father, Son, Holy Ghost.” The album is getting universal praise, including receiving raves from The Lefort Report (full review to follow).  Oh yeah, and Pitchfork recently gave it one of Pitchfork’s highest album ratings in the last couple years.

The band will pay homage to indie record stores across the nation who have the new album on sale by webcasting Friday’s Nashville concert from Grimey’s across the websites, blogs and Facebooks of participating independent record stores across the nation.  Matador claims it’s the “first ever NATIONWIDE in-store performance.”

So this Friday 9/16, at 3pm Pacific time (since we all know you West Coast slackers knock off at noon on Friday anyway) make sure to tune in to your favorite record store’s website, blog or Facebook to watch the performance live From Nashville.

We recommend accessing San Luis Obispo’s Boo Boo’s Records website to check it out, but other participating stores can be found HERE.

On 9/11/11, America’s masterful Paul Simon delivered a moving version of his salient song, The Sound of Silence.   Not much more need be said, except that if you’re not affected by the video, you may require a soul-check.  Check the performance below the lyrics, which seemed to  only find their purpose 37 years after having been written (in 1964).

“Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

“Fools,” said I, “you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence””

Hank Williams III lured Tom Waits over to his side to record together.  Check out the results in the song Fading Moon below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBTafnMs-Hs&feature=player_embedded

We’ve been dreading this day since well before June 6, 2010 (and after).  Needn’t say anything more than Tom Rush’s song.  That’s life…..and we feel fine.

Tom Rush–Child’s Song

We discovered a bit of musical bliss for Sunday.  Check out the video below by A Story Told Well from Cincinnati’s 2011 MusicNOW Festival (this year curated by The National’s Bryce Dessner).  As is stated, this collaboration between Sharon Van Etten, Bon Iver, Megafaun, and Fight The Big Bull (collectively called Sounds Of The South), was considered one of the highlights of this year’s MusicNOW Festival.  Here, Justin Vernon and Sharon Van Etten duet in a performance of “Trials, Troubles, Tribulations,” one of the re-imaginings of the songs recorded by ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax in his early travels.

Speaking of The National, oh how we wish we were headed to their headlining show tonight at the Hollywood Bowl with Neko Case (backed by T Bone Burnett, who’s producing her new album) and Sharon Van Etten.  We can’t imagine a better musical place to be on the planet today.  Tomorrow is Departure Day, however, so we have a higher calling this day.

Check out the MusicNOW performance below.

ASTW Presents | Sounds of the South @ MusicNOW ft. Megafaun, Fight The Big Bull, Justin Vernon & Sharon Van Etten from A Story Told Well on Vimeo.

While words can oft-times fail to fully convey an emotion, music never fails to do so.

It’s 9/11, and there remains a weighty world of woe.  Fortunately, we have found solace (or at least catharsis) in music related to that ridiculous day.

Mark Knopfler wrote the song, If This is Goodbye, from the perspective of someone trapped in the Towers calling their loved one for the last time.   While obviously old-school musically, the song roundly resonates.  Many great songs have been written about or relating to the events of 9/11, but for us Knopfler’s song hits amongst the hardest. In the performance below, the emotion in Knopfler’s and Emmylou Harris’s voices is palpable (apologies for the early ending).

But in each goodbye, we believe there may also be a hello.  Sarah Kirkland Snider‘s song cycle “Penelope“ (commissioned by the Getty Center and inspired by Homer’s “Odyssey”) tells the story of “a woman whose husband appears at her door after an absence of twenty years.”  The smart folks at The Believer magazine included Snider’s song, Nausicaa, in their 2011 Music Issue (this year devoted to “New Work by Contemporary Composers”). The straightforward lyrics of Nausicaa are sung beautifully by Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond and supported by chamber ensemble, Signal.  In the song Worden sings:  “You look so lost stranger.  But you’re not lost ’cause I’ve just found you.  Just take my hand stranger.  Just take my hand, and I will lead you home.”  The swelling chamber sonorities and hauntingly sung melody together provide perfect solace and comfort in their greeting.  Upon hearing the song today, we  could only think of what comes after, and the 9/11 victims being similarly greeted and led home.  We wish you comfort and peace.

Sarah Kirkland Snider–Nausicaa

[audio:https://www.thelefortreport.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/02-Nausicaa.mp3|titles=02 Nausicaa]

You can listen to the entire song-cycle HERE.